What does the removal of NPAPI plugin support mean to an end user?

Question

I'm somewhat familiar with the family of legacy plugins - namely QuickTime, Flash, and the Java Web plugin to name a few. They've been kind of a mainstay of web applications for quite some time.

So, I was surprised to learn (well...I actually learned around this blog post instead, as a nondescript footnote) that NPAPI plugins are to be discontinued in Google Chrome. I've heard rumblings of it being removed in Firefox as well, but I haven't found any hard references to this.

That's fine. I can understand and respect that; those plugins add lots of security vulnerabilities to the browser on their own, and lots of bloat.

But, what does that really translate to for me as an end user? Does this mean that I won't be able to run applications that have an expectation of the Java, QuickTime, or Flash plugin to be available? Are there any replacements or an otherwise compatible "plugin" of sorts that could take its place until the application itself is updated?

Do I have to use an older version of my browser to continue using the applications that still make use of these plugins?

If need be, I can specify the platform I'm referring to: (X)Ubuntu/Linux Mint, latest version(s), 64-bit OS.

Answer 1

I've actually did some research for my company since we do flash development. Here is the content of the email to the higher ups (some parts redacted)

tl;dr

• Flash is not affected in either case
• Unity will have to re-write their plugin for Chrome to use new APIs (using OpenGL among other things) that Chrome is promoting. ^{(I believe newest Unity already supports that)}
• Java will have to re-write their plugin for Chrome to use new API Java will not be developing any future plugin for any platform starting with Java 9, and has no intention to update the existing plugin to support any new browser plugin architectures.
• Firefox's "click-to-play" will be required from all plugins (except Flash), however the user's selection will be saved (per site). Mozilla intends to remove NPAPI support from Firefox by the end of 2016.

Chrome

• Will disable old API, called NPAPI (Netscape Plugin API)
  http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html
• This change affects: Silverlight, Unity, Java
• This change does not affect Flash (which is in-built on Chrome and doesn’t use NPAPI)

Chrome’s NPAPI deprecation roadmap:
http://www.chromium.org/developers/npapi-deprecation

• January 2014. Common plug-ins, like Silverlight, Unity, Java will be whitelisted for now (although Unity and Java already blocked by default)
• Other plug-ins will see yellow popup asking for permission.
• Mid 2014. No more updates allowed for NPAPI plug-ins. NPAPI plug-ins no longer listed on store search.
• Allowing blocked plug-ins to run will be more difficult through UI, but still possible (if already installed)
• September 2014. All NPAPI plug-ins removed from store (but will still work if already installed)
• End of 2014. NPAPI support in Chrome will be removed entirely (plug-ins using NPAPI will not work)

Chrome alternative to NPAPI:

• NaCL. NativeClient which allows OpenGL ES access.
• HTML5.
• WebRTC.

Firefox

• Will enable "click-to-play" plug-ins with release of new Firefox version called Aurora (still in pre-Beta)
  https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
• This change affects: all plug-ins, with exception of Flash (except old Flash versions)
• Users will need to click on popup in order to allow plug-ins to run.
  • By the end of 2016, the only plugin that will be supported will be Flash. All other NPAPI plugins will not be compatible.

Firefox alternative to plug-ins:

• Once again, suggestion is to use technologies available within the browsers, such as
  • WebGL, which allows OpenGL ES access
  • WebRTC.

Answer 2

I will reply to 2 of your questions and i will give info about the status of NPAPI plugins in browser at 2018, for all those who requires to execute plugins because corporate pages, govern pages, elearning courses, hardware web Admin, etc...

Do I have to use an older version of my browser to continue using the applications that still make use of these plugins?

No, You have updated forks of Firefox supporting NPAPI, such as:

Waterfox 56 (updated and based in FF56)

Basilisk 201801 (updated and based in FF55)

Palemoon 27 (updated and based in FF27 UI)

Do I have to use an older version of my browser to continue using the applications that still make use of these plugins?

Yes, if you want to use the official Firefox or a Chrome browser. In fact the last version of a browser with 'Chrome' engine is:

Chromium. build 45.0.2416.0-win32 (it requires to enable PPAPI with chrome://flags/#enable-npapi)